ANZAC Day

It is only two weeks away and I bought I would let residents know the details of forthcoming events to coincide with Anzac Day. We will be working with both the RSL Sub-Branches of Botany and Mascot for this year’s Anzac Day ceremonies.

The Mascot RSL Sub-Branch is organising a pre Anzac Day march along Botany Road and Botany RSL Sub-Branch will be organising an Anzac Day Dawn Service.

The Anzac march will begin at 2.00pm on April 22 at Baxter Road, Mascot and go down Botany Road to Mascot Memorial Park, where a remembrance ceremony will be held.

The Anzac Day Dawn Service will be held at 6.00am at the memorial in Booralee Park at the corner of Bay and Daniel streets.

Last year, due to a number of circumstances, the Dawn Service was not held and I immediately offered Council’s assistance in ensuring the service would be held in future years.The Dawn Service is one of the most moving ceremonies you can attend and it represents Australia and the debt this country owes those who served this nation in conflicts. 

I found it immensely gratifying in the past to see increasing numbers of people attending the Dawn Service, especially young adults and children. The growing attendances added to the regret the Botany RSL Sub-Branch had in not having a service last year. This City will ensure that this area commemorates Anzac Day in the future as it has done in the past. 

Without detracting from the solemness of Anzac Day, I must confess that I was concerned by a story last Monday of how bureaucrats in the Federal Government had spent money on focus groups to test the forthcoming Anzac Day centenary and multiculturalism. I must confess I do have problems about bureaucratic waste and madness but this one, as far as political correctness is concerned, goes a little too far.

“Commemorating our military history in a multicultural society is something of a two-edged sword,” the report of the research apparently says, add that such commemorations could be “divisive”.

At Gallipoli the Anzac Day commemorations are attended by many, many Turkish people and their government – whose ancestors Australians and New Zealanders troops engaged in battle. Do they worry about impacts on a multicultural society when they attend those commemorations? I think not.

Bureaucrats are often too political correct. We see it when they rail against celebrating Christmas or Easter. It might offend the adherents of Islam or the Jewish faith. Muslims and Jews in Australia aren’t offended – indeed we join in the celebrations.

I can think of many other, and more valuable, activities that the money allocated for the Anzac Day research could have been spent on. But putting political correctness aside, this City, which is multicultural, will commemorate Anzac Day.